As we’ve said before, Dr. Dremo’s, the seriously dive bar at Courthouse might be closing in early 2006.

Elm Street Development wants to buy the Dremo (and Taco Bell) property to build a 10 floor high rise. The current zoning only allows buildings of a 2 floor height and the neighbors are not excited about a new high-rise at Courthouse. Us alcoholics need to speak our minds too. We would surely miss Dremo’s. Where else would we have Flip Cup Tournaments?

The county board meeting to consider changing the zoning to allow a 10 floor building will be at 9am, Saturday morning, at the County Board Room, Room 307, 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Its open to for public comment, so sober up and get down there!

Afterwards, you can toast your challenge to the man with Abita Purple Haze. Dr. Dremo’s beer distributor has assured them that the Abita brewery will not experience an interruption in production due to hurricane Katrina.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Did ya see him yesterday? The “ATM Guy” a 7-foot tall walking Chevy Chase Bank ATM mascot in a special Chevy Chase Bank-wrapped Metro train? Yeah, I know, I cried when I found I missed him too. Damn.

He was out and about promoting Chevy Chase Bank’s ATM’s in 34 Metrorail stations. Yep, now you can get cash out just to turn around and put it in

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Seen today on L Street, heading into the back entrance of 1801 K Street:

A man in a blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, red tie- your typical Downtown male uniform- wakling in a group of people, and carrying a large white piggy bank covered in little pink hearts. He was carrying it gingerly, on one hand, held out in front of him, like he was about to present it to someone.

It made me smile.

Any thoughts on what the pig was for?

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It’s just before 10am and I’m sitting in the server room, cataloging the backup drives I’m going to have to dismount in about 5 minutes when we have our evacuation drill. When the London attacks happened in July, it was a notice to management that we’d not had a single evacuation drill, building-wide, in the 18 months we’d been in the suite. Of course, we’re frequently on the receiving end of false alarms that force IT guys like me to go running down the hallway to the server room to check the status of the backup drives and pack up the fire safe for evacuation, so this was old hat to me. But we’d never really practiced it, so we asked building management to come teach us how to evacuate.

Meetings ensued.

Many meetings. Zones were drawn up, coordinators appointed, first-aid kits distributed, shelter-in-place instructions were written down, personnel with training from oakville cpr training with c2c course, all manner of things preparing us to deal with hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis and acts-of-terror. But really, I can’t get excited about any of this. All these preparations when we’re four blocks from the White House and twelve from the Capitol. I can’t help but feel that any crisis that will need orderly, city-wide evacuation will level the office building in which I sit anyhow.

Of course, once you’re on the street, where do you go, anyhow? We’re north of the Pennsylvania Avenue Line of Demarcation, forcing me up and into Maryland, some 30-40 miles from my home in Virginia. Will Metro be open? Will it be able to function in the event of a Catastrophe? Who the hell knows?

Living with a bulls-eye painted beneath your feet, a target sign hanging from every important landmark, and the constant “Oh God, Oh God, We’re All Gonna Die” from Department of Homeland Security’s sekrit command facility in the burbs gets pretty old after a while. Thinking “Do I have gas in the car?” when the threat level turns nuclear-glow-orange again gets older and older the more I live here.

As we filed down the stairs, the klaxon’s bleating drowned out all of the chatter on my company-issue walkie-talkie, lawyers and secretaries and educators clumping down the stairs in their corporate footwear, I thought, surely, there must be a more pleasant way to live?

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How is it possible that I’ve worked downtown for eight and a half months now and only JUST found out about the Greek Deli on 19th?

DC, have you been hiding it from me because the line is already out the door every day at lunchtime? Selfish bastards.

I can’t add much to what DCFUD has already said, so I will just add my endorsement of the falafel sandwich. And that Kostas is hilarious as he’s barking orders back to the kitchen.

Damn, now I’m hungry…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, DCist beat us to the punch on this one, I’ll freely admit, but it’s never pretty when two blogs throw down the gloves and get into it back alley style:

From the DC Bachelor:

It is very unfortunate to watch the Senator, a grown adult, completely break down on the internet and start threatening to remove links (in a horrible regurgitation of one of my rather amusing posts). I can only imagine him sitting in front of his computer – in the middle of what I’m sure is another really busy work day – getting red in the face and all teary with emotion as he just can’t understand why everyone isn’t as interesting as him.

And from the Cleveland Park Men’s Club:

Absolutely no one cares about your efforts. Only the most bored of men read the women’s site on this topic, and that is only because they are infatuated. These are the same men that were in the chat rooms of the 1990’s. But, YOU. No. Stop talking about how she was a bad kisser, how she giggled during sex, or the way her friends ditched you and left you standing there in some horribly classless bar.

Boys, boys, boys, why the hate? I realize that you’re both really into Kelly Ann Collins from homeroom, but do you have to take your battle to the playground?

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Vincent at Visual Voice blogged about a problem that our Nation’s Front Lawn has: The Trail of Terds by the reflecting pool, the result of all of the avian life that hangs out and just plain shits all over, the pool.

C’mon, Park Service, where’s the cleanup effort? This just ain’t right.

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Well, with a Category One Hurricane due to make landfall in North Carolina, and Katrina’s wrath current in our minds, Governor Warner has placed Virginia under a state of emergency, and the outer banks in North Carolina are being evacuated. WTOP also has the weather advisory for Ophelia. Get ready for some rain, and some higher tides than usual.

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I won’t say our radio selection here in DC will win us any awards. Our highest rated radio station is WTOP, an all-news format dedicated to covering in grandiose detail the workings of the town, which, while fascinating, lacks a catchy tune. Then again, it does give someone like Mark Plotkin a forum with which to club local politicians into submission to his will. But, there’s another radio solution here in DC.

DC is the home of XM Radio, satellite subscription radio service. They’ve got a hundred or so stations, some of them are commercial free, some of them play live music, and they’ve got a gorgeous live performance facility here in town as well. With a lock on the baseball market, and an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball, XM today signed a second deal, bringing Hockey Games to their service, all based out of their Florida Ave NE facility.

Of course, they don’t have Mark Plotkin, so if that’s your deal, don’t worry about signing up.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Yes, I had far too much fun writing that headline. I don’t want to deprive you, though, of the same sort of fun, so if you have a more amusing headline, please, feel free to add it below in the comments.

George Washington University chose not renew the contract of Adjunct Professor Michael Schaffer after his class discussions in his Human Sexuality class got a bit out of hand:

Two of the spring evaluations, from women who took the course, said that the course was demeaning to women. One of the critiques, which specifically cited a class discussion on shaving pubic hair, threatened a sexual harassment lawsuit. That evaluation also pointed to the “look before you lick” advice that Schaffer includes with his comments on all students’ final papers as “a little humor to teach about safe oral sex,” he said.

Of course, he was only let go after two students threatened to sue the University for sexual harassment, and many of the students who have taken his class found it absolutely beneficial to their education, not predatory and harassing. Given that it’s a non-required course, I think GW may have acted too hastily. Check out the article, chime in below. Any students who have take Professor Schaffer’s course amongst our number?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Somehow, even though it’s still nice and warm outside, I’m starting to get the cravings that hit me every autumn. Thick, rich, bittersweet hot chocolate. This delicious combination cures all ills.

Last March I went with a bunch of girlfriends to Venice, a city renowned for its cioccolata calda, and we had the elixir every freezing day (and yet somehow managed to lose weight. Hmm… maybe Italian women don’t get fat either).

So I went out in search of this chocolate holy grail. A little mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

Some choice quotes from Mayor Williams’ Blog:

Sept 12: “My faith is rewarded. There is a merciful God. I sat in for my monthly Ask the Mayor with WTOP and my friend Mark Plotkin was on vacation. Think of the kind of serene bliss they project on the Corona commercials and you know the feeling.”

Man, I know Plotkin asks hard questions, Mr. Mayor, but man, that’s pretty hardcore.

Sept 10: “I support additional capital funding for the schools recognizing that the remaining need, even after implementation of public-private partnerships and collocation with charters, will still be in excess of existing increases.

The question is how? Taking the dollars from the lottery to fund the increase isn’t the way to do it. Hello? This is the creative accounting that got Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, California, and yes, the District in the mess we faced, bottoming out in 1995.”

Lottery funds, bad, charter schools, good. Okay, Tony…but how do we pay for it? Hey, aren’t you the mayor? Shouldn’t you tell us?

Sept 7: “Speaking of books, I’m thumbing through the book reviews and I’ve come upon a book I really want to read – Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost its Mind? by Michael Eric Dyson. I’m assigning this to fellow bloggers and we’ll have a discussion of it.

Okay, deal. DC Bloggers, this is your chance to be part of Tony Williams’ Book Club. You can pick it up at Barnes and Noble or Amazon, or any other retailer in the greater DC area. We’ll read it together, Tony, sound good?

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In a move that only Coach Gibbs could make, Pat Ramsey’s riding the pine for the forseeable future. Ramsey has apparently now asked for a trade, but no one can reach him nor Gibbs to get the final scoop. Ah, the drama, the sweet sweet controversy, of a new football season in DC. Sure, we love of our football here, but we love it with the same back-stabbing fervor that we reserve for the train-wreck that is American politics: full of twists and turns, scandal and embarrassment, all manner of DC-isms crammed into 4 quarters a Sunday and the stalkerific week between them.

Of course, this week it’s bigger than ever, as the ‘Skins go up against their mortal enemy, The Dallas Cowboys. Watch this one folks, it’s way better than any reality tv show.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I love to cook, but every time I’m faced with having to attack an onion, I freeze.

How the hell do you do it without collapsing into a blubbering pile of red-faced sneezy goo?
(Appetizing, I know…)
Not to mention the delicious yet messy mango, the prickly pineapple, or the wily chicken.

So, armed with a gift certificate to L’Academie de Cuisine, I set out to conquer the mysteries of kitchen knives Saturday afternoon.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

Three suits. Very, uh, milquetoast, shall we say. Cell phones out, binders in hand. Loitering on my block, 11th Street side. Scoping out buildings, taking notes, making calls. Looking down my alley.

Developers? Hmm. It’s disconcerting. My block is all residential, Victorians and little Federals. However, some company just demolished a similar row one block away… I wonder what’s up.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Do you miss those fun flip cup competitions of college days past? How about post-kickball drink-a-thons? Maybe even a night spent flip cupping grandma?

What about beer pong? Are you so good you can sink balls at 20 paces with one bounce off the floor? Or do you just drink the pong-water as you loose to an Olympian?

Either way, and for both sports, you can go pro now. Dr. Dremo’s, the Arlington institution, is hosting Beer pong and Flip cup tournaments on their patio this year, and it would be a great place for a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser tournament amongst 50-100 of your closest friends.

Just be sure to get there fast, Dr. Dremo may not be here in 2006.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Euan Blair, son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is about to start a 6-month internship on the Hill, having just finished a degree in ancient history.

In order to avoid making political difficulties for dear old Dad, Euan will be spending three months with a Republican and three months with a Democrat.

A word of advice to our visitor- you can engage in all manner of scandalous behavior with the other interns, but don’t get involved with the Congresscritters or their senior staff. You don’t know where they’ve been.

And you’re welcome to guest-blog for us, as well…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I did my football watching at my good friend Mike’s place today over in Falls Church, braving Sunday traffic for some incredible Italian Store sub sandwiches (any football watcher’s dream) and some Yuengling beer and some classic American Sunday activities. After the Steelers were done pasting the hapless Titans, I figured I would watch the ensuing shellacking of the 49ers from the comfort of my own couch, so I hopped in the car and headed back from Falls Church on Route 7. Then, as I headed Eastbound, approaching Patrick Henry Drive, I saw it happen. Metrobus Number 2013 (a 4B bus) swerved out of the turn lane it was in at 4:35pm, around the two cars in the turn lane ahead of it and parked itself blocking the turn lane and left eastbound lane of Route 7 in heavy Sunday traffic. I guess the driver decided that the two cars ahead of it just weren’t important enough to wait for. While I applaud dedication to schedule, I don’t think it’s more important than, you know, traffic laws.

Thanks WMATA for putting crazies in the driver’s seat of a multiple ton bus.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’ll ask you to bear with me for a second, by employment, I’m a technologist. That’s why, when I read stuff like this piece on the DC Schools CIO, I get really angry about government. The basics:

The DC Schools got a new system call DC STARS over the summer. It’s not working. At all. What’s more galling:

“In my experience, the combination of an Oracle database, Windows operating system, Unix hardware and an Apache webserver is a bad combination,” Barlow wrote in the memo to Thomas M. Brady, the school system’s chief business operations officer.

I’m sorry, CIO Barlow, Unix isn’t hardware. It’s SOFTWARE. It’s the most solid operating system in the world. You’re a Chief Information Officer, this is stuff you should know. Besides, what happened to the testing phase of the software development? Why didn’t you, as CIO, you know, TEST this heavily? And besides, this is clearly just “cover your ass” maneuvering by someone who deserves to be fired. But, apparently, this being Washington, we just don’t do that anymore.

Pity.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I sat in the lobby of the Los Angeles Marriott watching the disaster unfold in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The next night, I began a 3000 mile journey in a world without air travel. We left Los Angeles on the train under cover of darkness bound for the Crescent City. Over the next three days, I met people from all over the nation. Those are the people I think of today. The man and his wife, the Pearsons, from South Carolina who asked if they could call their son on my phone. Bill, the geneaologist from Metairie coming back from Texas. The girl from the art institute, Sarah, who drew portraits of all of us. The staffing agent from Baltimore, Jim and the Art Professor Emeritus from NYU, Peter, that shared the car from New Orleans to Washington.

We drove into Washington on a perfect autumnal sunday morning almost a week later, watching the flags ripple from the Capitol, from the Senate office buildings. We knew we were going to be just fine.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs